Syria air defense shoots down US drone

A US drone has been shot down by Syria’s military over the coastal province of Latakia near a stronghold of President Bashar al-Assad, Syrian state media say.

“Syrian air defenses brought down a hostile US surveillance aircraft over north Latakia,” AFP quoted the official SANA news agency as saying on Tuesday.

Turkish military sources told the website of the Hürriyet newspaper that the aircraft was an unarmed American Predator drone, which had took off from the US Incirlik air base in Turkey’s southern province of Adana.

The Syrian state-run television has also broadcast footage of what it referred to as the drone’s wreckage, which was being loaded onto the back of a truck by soldiers.